The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Watch The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023) online — a 39-minute film directed by Wes Anderson, adapted from Roald Dahl's short story and the Academy Award winner for Best Live Action Short Film. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Henry Sugar, a wealthy idler who discovers a manuscript about an Indian mystic — played by Ben Kingsley — who trained himself to see without his eyes.

Henry spends three years mastering the technique, planning to clean out every casino in Europe. What he actually finds is harder to spend. Anderson shoots the whole thing as an open theatrical artifice: Dev Patel and Ralph Fiennes narrate while sets transform mid-scene, and characters introduce other characters who start telling their own stories from the inside. It plays less like a short film and more like a magic trick that explains itself while doing it. Stream The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023) in full on iFILM.